rbioch-ships-mystrade:
duchesscloverly:
Give me ALL of your Mystrade coffee shop AUs!
(“I’m living in a world of goldfish,” he said. “I also don’t frequent cafés,” he said.)
It’s not the most imaginative name, but there’d been a Gregg’s down the street and “Gregory’s Coffee” had been the best name he could think up. Running a coffee shop was one thing; he wasn’t going to sink to naming it with bad puns. He’d thought about calling it Lestrade’s made it sound like a French bakery and a lot fancier than a shop that sold tea, coffee and the occasional toastie.
It was an unassuming shop that mostly sold to men and women in fancy suits, rushing around Whitehall. Not the suburb Greg would have picked, but Sherlock found the shop at a discount rent (guilt, Greg thinks. He’d got shot following one of Sherlock’s hunches – sorry, deductions – and even though it was Sherlock’s fast reactions that made the wound debilitating rather than lethal, he still seemed guilty about it.)
The shop does a steady trade. Enough to cover rent and salaries, and give Greg a little to set aside for a rainy day fund. More importantly, it keeps him busy. If he’s not serving coffee to queues of interchangeable faces in suits, he’s ordering stock or paying bills or rostering staff or reporting VAT. There’s a never-ending list of paperwork and cleaning, and it doesn’t leave him much time left to bold over his divorce or the ugly scar across his left side.
“Gregory,” someone says after ordering tea. “It’s an unusual name.”
Greg shrugs. “Not really,” he says, then, “Four pounds twenty.”
The man gives him a fiver. “It’s an unusual name for a cafe.”
Greg looks up then. He usually doesn’t bother. Best part of this job is that he doesn’t have to look at people and wonder what they’re hiding, constantly judge his honest they’re being with him. All he has to do is ring up the order and make sure the right drink gets made. “Better than Lestrade’s.”
The man – tall, strong nose, weak chin, sharp grey eyes – blinks twice. “Gregory Lestrade,” he says. “I owe you a debt of gratitude.”
“For what?”
“Sherlock.” His eyes flicker down as if he knows exactly where Greg was shot.
Greg hands back the man’s change, noticing the fine black leather gloves. “Sherlock saved my life. Not the other way around.”
“I disagree. Since the incident, Sherlock has stayed clean.” There’s a weight to the way he says clean, an emphasis Greg’s heard from family members and ex-junkies.
Sherlock may be a brilliant, messed-up kid – late twenties, yes, but still a kid – but he talks a lot when he’s high. “You’re the mysterious older brother? Running the world and keeping tabs on everything Sherlock does?”
He gets another blink and then the tiniest quirk of soft lips. Amusement softens his face, makes Greg see the five year old kid he must have been: precocious and bright, fascinated and thrilled by the world. “One of those is true, yes. Mycroft Holmes. If there’s anything I can do for you…”
“Like what?”
“Anything,” Mycroft replies, too serious, once again such a sensible adult.
“Let’s call it even.” Without Sherlock, that bullet would have gone through a lung and nicked his heart. Greg’s seen the trajectory projections. He also knows life’s too short to dilly-dally and waste opportunities. “But if you’re free Friday night…”
“I am, yes.”
“Want to go to dinner with me?”
Mycroft pulls himself back to his full height, ducks his chin in. There’s a small confused crease between his brows. “Dinner? As in a romantic…” He seems lost for words.
“A date, yeah.” Greg smiles hopefully and ignores the two person queue forming behind Mycroft. They can wait or they can go to the Cafe Nero round the corner. “You and me.”
Mycroft looks him up and down, so much like Sherlock used to that Greg almost laughs at the similarity. “This Friday?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ll pick you up at eight.”
“You don’t have my address.” Then, Greg thinks of something else. “You don’t have my phone number.”
“Not a problem,” Mycroft replies with the kind of confidence that Greg finds irresistible.
Mystrade-Lecroft 